Recent comments

  • Reply to: "Coffee with the Troops" at Yearly Kos Fuels Debate About the Netroots and the War   16 years 8 months ago
    But you're wrong about one thing. <blockquote> <strong>A few weeks ago when I examined the schedule for Yearly Kos</strong> it was clear that there would be no meaningful strategy session on the war in Iraq. I decided to create that session ... The Yearly Kos refused to put our event Coffee with the Troops onto their convention schedule despite the fact that no other event was scheduled at the time.</blockquote> The reason your event didn't make the schedule was because the organizers had to set a deadline for taking any additional event suggestions sometime in May due to printing and scheduling demands (which the McCormick management exacerbated by switching rooms around up to two weeks prior to the event itself). Your admission that you only noticed the lack of such an event just "a few weeks ago" (as I emphasized above) just serves to confirm this fact. The conference has exactly 1.5 paid staffers. It was (and is) volunteer driven, from concept to legwork. I was a volunteer, so I know this firsthand. There were complaints about the lack of a vets' panel on several DailyKos diaries just before the conference, and each time it was pointed out that the ones who made panels and roundtables happen were <em>the folks who wanted them</em>, not some shadowy decisionmakers of "The YearlyKos." Yet you and others persist in repeating this meme. There was no panel on reproductive rights this year, either. And guess what? A group of us are already working to organize one for next year. We're not going to wait until three or four weeks prior to the event, and then allege that the organizers are "refusing" to honor our requests -- and then repeat that misrepresentation the way you do whenever you talk about your event -- which, by the way, leaves a sour taste in the mouths of those who would otherwise applaud the savvy and proactive way you organized, staged and promoted it in so short a time! I don't get it, John. I don't get it at all. Why assume malice or neglect where there was none? Especially since your event was even better attended and far more powerful than some that <em>were</em> on the printed schedule?
  • Reply to: Iraq: The "Gift" That Keeps On Bleeding   16 years 8 months ago
    [http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/152427/1/] Iraq War Resisters to Get Boost from Veterans Group Aaron Glantz OneWorld US Mon., Aug. 20, 2007 SAINT LOUIS, Aug 20 (OneWorld) - Members of a leading Iraq war veterans' organization voted this weekend to launch a campaign encouraging U.S. troops to refuse to fight. The decision was made at the group's annual membership meeting, held this weekend in Saint Louis, Missouri alongside the annual convention of the Veterans for Peace organization. "Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do," said Garrett Rappenhagen, a former U.S. Army sniper who served in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005. "There's a misconception that they're cowards," Rappenhagen said. "Most war resisters have already gone on a tour in Iraq. They've seen the war firsthand and have come to the conclusion that it's morally wrong. This is something we all should support. So to break that timidness of how we view war resisters in America, IVAW decided to embrace them."
  • Reply to: Iraq: The "Gift" That Keeps On Bleeding   16 years 8 months ago
    I haven't had time to watch all the clips yet, but I was especially impressed by Kelly Dougherty's talk on IVAW's strategy, pointing out how support for the war consists of interdependent structures and how weakening any of them weakens all the rest.
  • Reply to: Spinning Wikipedia   16 years 8 months ago

    Maybe the original news was this one

    http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker?currentPage=all#

    In my country, Spain, a tv channel, Antena 3, transform that political news in: "look I can change the content of an article of the Wiki", and they did it!!!

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=xzmTwPzKHbk

    Excuse my primitive english, hope do you undestand the commentary

  • Reply to: Edelman Reps Diebold's Not-So-Amicable Split   16 years 8 months ago

    "You're either part of the solution or part of the problem."

    By picking that name, the Premier Election Solutions folks have clearly signaled their determination to be part of the solution.

    Onward and upward. :-)

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